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The Premier Address For All Things Graphic DesignWed, 11 Feb 2015 16:04:57 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.3An Event Apart, 2012 San Francisco: A Reviewhttp://www.graphicdesign.com/article/an-event-apart-2012-review/
http://www.graphicdesign.com/article/an-event-apart-2012-review/#commentsFri, 16 Nov 2012 23:14:39 +0000http://www.graphicdesign.com/?post_type=article&p=9175I spent last Monday November 12, 2012 at the sold out An Event Apart (AEA) conference at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. This was my first time at AEA. Admittedly, I had some reservations about how relevant An Event Apart would be for me personally since I’m an SEO and usability professional and not a full-time designer. But I’m a fan of a good conference and a designer friend of mine raved about the event a year or so ago, so I went for the day to see what it was all about.

Image credit: Nick Musica
Caption: A Lunchbox Apart

Image credit: Nick Musica
Caption: Sandwich and apple not included

The morning speakers

My reservations were dismissed early on in the first presentation given by Jeffrey Zeldman in which he talked about the three-click rule (or lack thereof), the scent of information and instapaper.

• The three-click rule, as you may well know, states that if a user can’t find what they are looking for within three clicks they will leave your site. This is a myth, not a rule at all.
• The scent of information, or information scent, refers to cues that help users find their information or complete their task online (or off).

Zeldman continued to set the stage of the event by mentioning Instapaper. For those of you not familiar with it (I wasn’t), it’s an application that works on just about any device that allows you to view your favorite news site in a way so web page content presents like a book page on a Kindle. I’ve explored the app enough to know it’s going to be one of my top-tapped icons on my iPhone and iPad.

So, within ten minutes, three of my favorite usability topics (Zeldman also referenced Steve Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think) were mentioned and I learned about a new, good, application that will make my life easier. It’s fair to say that I was hooked on An Event Apart.

Samantha Warren was the second speaker of the day. She talked about the benefits of using style tiles in the design process. As a participant and fan of the (re)design process, style tiles sounded like a great design tool as they can be used to communicate the design elements without locking you into specific page designs. They can also help avoid going over budget and disappointed clients and colleagues. See Warren talk about style tiles.

My takeaway from the 3rd speaker, Jon Tan, was that we are all typographers. I’ve never considered myself a typographer, but it’s true. If you are working with type, you’re a typographer one sense or another.

This was one of the main themes of the show, not typography necessarily, but the bigger idea is that no matter what your role may be, be it a designer, a developer, writer, product manager, SEO or usability professional, we are all responsible for the user experience and all impact the user whether we know it or not. The afternoon was wrapped up by three speakers.

Luke W, also known as Luke Wroblewski, gave a lively talk about how to make things easier for users on mobile devices and the future of mobile. One tip from his presentation for designers, developers and UX professionals was: Think outside of the standard default controls that mobile platforms offer. Instead, look to see where you can reduce the number of inputs and controls. This will lead to a better experience and more conversion. See Luke W talk about mobile.

Jen Simmons gave a great presentation on HTML5 APIs. I think the big takeaway from her presentation was when she said, “Knowing what is possible is all of our jobs today”. This is why non-designers and non-developers should go to AEA. The conference helps to educate everyone who works on the web, not just designers and developers. It also serves to create a common vocabulary for our industry – something that is sorely missing at times – so we can better communicate with each other.

Ethan Marcotte finished off the day by presenting responsive design. One of the key concepts Marcotte expressed was to start small, lead with content and scale up. Staring with content, regardless of device, was one of the major themes of day one. See Marcotte talk about responsive design.

The wrap up

If you can only go to one conference during the year, seriously consider going to AEA. Better yet, bring a colleague or two. The more people we have thinking about what is good for the user and knowing what can be done technically can only yield a good UX experience and better conversion.

An Event Apart will be back at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco in December 2013. If you don’t want to wait that long, AEA will be in Seattle, San Diego, and Boston, the first half of 2013. Check out the An Event Apart site for all locations and dates.

]]>http://www.graphicdesign.com/article/an-event-apart-2012-review/feed/0Tales of Copyright Infringement, Theft and Protecting Your Creative Workhttp://www.graphicdesign.com/article/copyright-infringement-theft-protecting/
http://www.graphicdesign.com/article/copyright-infringement-theft-protecting/#commentsThu, 13 Sep 2012 00:11:20 +0000http://www.graphicdesign.com/?post_type=article&p=8570How would you like to find your website on sale for less than the cost of a sandwich? This is exactly what happened to Roger Montti of www.martinibuster.com who found one of his websites, one of his entire websites, for sale on eBay for $8 a copy. Montti is an award winning web publisher and is no stranger to content theft. His first experience was when he discovered a web designer had stolen his website’s layout including the HTML, CSS and images and then populated the site with their own content. He discovered the theft when he happened to search in Google for a phrase on his contact page (a phrase the thief didn’t remove).

“This was my first experience with content theft. I was livid,” Montti said. “So I exercised my rights under a U.S. law known as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) that empowers content producers with tools to fight back against content thieves.”

Montti submitted a DMCA take down notice through Google, asking them to remove the website from their search results. Google responded by notifying the thief that their website would be removed from Google if they didn’t resolve the matter. The thief apologized and promptly removed the content.

Montti has also contacted website owners directly via a warning letter and asking that they remove his content or he will be forced to submit a DMCA notice. This too has resulted in his content being removed from offending sites.

Why do so many websites copy and paste content from other websites? Montti believes that most content theft stems from ignorance. “Many recipients of my notice believed that as long as they linked back to the source of the stolen content or graphics it was okay to publish online. Others believed that anything that is published online was in the public domain. This is what you the creative artist are up against.”

How much of someone’s creative work can you legally use?

Some of Montti’s examples are extreme and most would agree that they are straightforward cases of theft, but what about the Ordinary Joe who gets inspired by looking at someone else’s logo or website? What if the original artist, or company who owns the art, thinks Joe copied their design a little too closely? Is it a case of flattery, or can Joe find himself in court for copyright infringement?

According to David M. Adler, a Chicago, Illinois based attorney who focuses on intellectual property, media and entertainment, “For designs, If you are ‘inspired by’ someone else’s work and design a new creative work, you most likely will not be infringing. For a logo that is used as a source identifier, even if the design is distinctive, it may be infringing.”

Exactly how much of someone’s work can you use without permission before you start risking copyright infringement, the receipt of a nasty DMCA notice or worse? According to copyright.gov’s FAQ page, “There are no legal rules permitting the use of a specific number of words, a certain number of musical notes, or percentage of a work.”

That’s not much help, but at least copyright.gov state elsewhere on the site that, “The safest course is to get permission from the copyright owner before using copyrighted material.”

Adler offers these guidelines for graphic designers, writers and other creatives.

“What you learned in grade school will serve you best: do you own work, don’t copy, give credit where credit is due. Copyright infringement and trademark infringement are highly nuanced areas of the law and are determined on a case-by-case basis. A designer’s independently-developed original creative work will not be found to be infringing. However, if you have doubts about whether your work infringes someone else’s, then it probably does.”

Is your work being passed off as someone else’s?

Here are a couple of ways you can police your creative work online.

Images and photos

In addition to searching by file name and/or description in Google Images, you can upload an image or paste an image’s URL by clicking on the camera icon on the right-hand side of the search box. You’ll be prompted to paste the URL of an image or upload an image.

Caption: Google Images, homepage. Note the camera icon on the right-hand side of the search box.

Caption: Google Images, the resulting page after the camera is clicked.

The results aren’t perfect (sadly, I’m not a Russian underwear model) but they can help you spot theft. If you don’t mind paying for a service, www.digimarc.comcan help you monitor your images for about $50 a year.

Copy

If monitoring copy is your concern, you can always copy/paste a portion of your website copy in quotes into Google’s search field to see if your copy is being used on other sites. www.copyscape.com is a paid service that can help you monitor the web for plagiarism for about $5 a month if you have a budget for a monitoring service.

When is imitation no longer flattery to you?

When does imitation go beyond flattery and turn into theft or copyright infringement in your eyes? At what point would you send a DMCA notice or contact an attorney about copyright infringement? Let us know in the comments.

Intellectual property (IP) is a complicated topic. This article is not and should not be considered legal advice. Consider contacting a lawyer if you feel you have been the victim of content theft, copyright infringement or trademark infringement.